Theocritus, Idylls (English) (XML Header) [genre: poetry] [word count] [lemma count] [Theoc. Id.]. | ||
<<Theoc. Id. 4.20 | Theoc. Id. 5.14 (Greek) | >>Theoc. Id. 5.86 |
The scene of this shepherd-mime is laid in the wooded pastures near the mouth of the river Crathis in the district of Sybaris and Thurii in Southern Italy. The foreground is the shore of a lagoon near which stand effigies of the Nymphs who preside over it, and there is close by a rustic statue of Pan of the seaside. The characters are a goatherd named Comatas and a young shepherd named Lacon who are watching their flocks. Having seated themselves some little distance apart, they proceed to converse in no very friendly spirit, and the talk gradually leads to a contest of song with a woodcutter named Maroson for the judge and a lamb and a goat for the stakes. The contest is spirits, not to say a bitter, one, and consists of a series of alternate couplets, the elder man first singing his couplet and the younger then trying to better him at the same theme. The themes Comatas chooses are various, but the dominant note, as often in Theocritus, is love. In some of the lines there is more meaning than appears on the surface. After fourteen pairs of couplets, Morson breaks in before Lacon has replied and wards his lamb to Comatas.
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
LACON
COMATAS
Theocritus, Idylls (English) (XML Header) [genre: poetry] [word count] [lemma count] [Theoc. Id.]. | ||
<<Theoc. Id. 4.20 | Theoc. Id. 5.14 (Greek) | >>Theoc. Id. 5.86 |